Somatic & Dance Courses
Scroll down to see more information on the following courses:
Embodying the Sacred Cacao Ritual
Elemental Body Somatic CPD
Dance of Awareness
Embodying the Sacred Cacao Ritual
A four day intensive with Marcela Enríquez Wakeham following the tradition from the Cacao Guardians of the Maya Chontales in the state of Tabasco Mexico.
BOOKING STILL OPEN FOR WEEKEND TWO WHICH YOU CAN JOIN AS A STAND ALONE WITHOUT WEEKEND ONE.
This is an in-depth study of the Cacao plant medicine… It is for all of those who would like to connect and understand the loving power and the ritualistic tradition of Cacao through the study and transmission of the Toltec and Mayan oral traditions, storytelling and somatic shamanic journeys which is going into altered states of consciousness with movement. Cacao is the medicine of the heart, and it is an extraordinary plant that facilitates meditation journeys, planting the seeds of change, for connecting with our hearts, for releasing blockages, and creating the opportunity to contact with positive emotions and the Great Spirit.
During the program you will discover and experience the history and legends of Mesoamerican cultures through the embodiment of their sacred myths around Cacao, so you can understand why cacao it is used in ceremonies, as well as how to connect and ask permission to the Day-Keepers and cacao guardians.
The aim of this program is to ignite within us the original Cacao mission on Planet Earth, which is to FEEL the heart and SENSE the world opening up to all our relations. Feeling the heart is to become a Jaguar Warrior, that who has the courage and dares to look inside, that who can see in the dark, the one who can navigate the subconscious mind. Sensing the world and all our relations is to become an Eagle Warrior with a light heart who can navigate life with the flow of the wind, see from above to fight with the light of conscious awareness, and return yourself and the planet to a state of harmony and abundance. These are the original instructions from the Toltecayotl, or the way of the Toltec Warrior. Cacao and other plant medicines on Mother Earth are here to guide us.
Marcela Enríquez Wakeham, has been running ancestral medicine ceremonies since 2015, offering an embodied approach. Marcela follows the tradition from the Cacao Guardians of the Maya Chontales in the state of Tabasco Mexico. She is in an active process of tracing back and reclaiming her Yaqui Indigenous roots, she is in commitment with the Great Spirit to spread and translate the ancestral knowledge into these times.
Day one ceremony ~ The Legend of Quetzalcoatl
One of the oldest stories from the Mother of all Mesoamerican cultures, the Olmecs. This story recounts the origins of Cacao from the Olmec/Toltec oral Tradition, which is re-told in the prayers of the Chontal-Maya communities in Tabasco, Mexico during their agricultural ceremonies. Marcela will take you into to a journey to embody this ancestral Olmec story, igniting in your physical body the origin and mission of Cacao medicine on planet Earth and why Cacao medicine is now re emerging at this time
Day two Ceremony ~The Maya Emergence Myth
Corn has always been sacred across all America indigenous cultures, and for a link to cacao, it’s worth exploring the sacred Mayan text called the Popol Vuh, the book of the creation story, which states that to create humans The Maker and The Creator used corn to create the body. The connection and symbology of these two plants for the Maya are intrinsically related. In ceremony they hold many meanings and associations that we are going to explore and hopefully embody. This ceremony is special to plant the seed of change as it is a death-rebirth celebration
Day three Ceremony ~ The Cacao Process, The Legend of the Hero Twins
The act of processing cacao beans from; fermentation-drying, roasting, peeling, grinding and pouring them in to water, is not only a cooking process but also is a symbol of rebirth and power that parallels the stages of cacao processing with the legend of the Hero Twins defeating the trials and tribulations of the Underworld Lords and their self-sacrifice act to be reborn as two fish, subsequently becoming the sun and the moon. Cacao is thus a spiritual food deeply connected to the identity of the Maya. On this ceremony we will embody the Cacao Process.
Day Four Ceremony ~ The Legend of Mama Xkik’
The Maya oral tradition of Tabasco tells us that Xkik’ is the Mother of Cacao, Ixmucane is the Grandmother. This ritual will be an entrance to communicate with our ancestral heritage to ignite our indigenous connection. We will embody the long-lost agricultural harvest Ceremony of “Gratitude” which is performed every year in the Cacaotal, during the Blood Moon, learning to invoke the ancient Feminine Spirit of Ix ’Kakaw, and her heritage. In this Ceremony we will receive the blessings and be welcomed by our Grandmother ancestors.
Schedule for each day:
10:00 - 13:00 - In depth study of sacred cacao plant medicine
13:00 - 14:00 - Lunch (Not provided)
14:00 - 17:00 - Embodying the Sacred Cacao Ritual - Cacao Ceremony aligned with the theme for each day.
Dates:
September 9th & 10th 2023 & April 13th & 14th 2023
Cost:
£325 (Early Bird Price until June 30th) £356 thereafter. £178 for just one weekend.
If financial hardship is a barrier please be in touch. I self fund subsidies to make this work more accessible. Especially welcoming enquiries from those who identify as being marginalized due to race/ethnicity, disability, gender & LGBTQ+ and experiencing financial hardship.
Elemental Body CPD
With Gemma Mallol and Emily Katsuno
ELEMENTAL BODY SOMATIC CPD TRAINING, DARTMOOR, DEVON:
23rd – 27th May 2024
with Gemma Mallol & Emily Katsuno
Non Residential CPD Training
550 GBP / 3 low income spots available please apply.
Small Group, Maximum 12
Training Content:
This Elemental Movement CPD offers a bridge for yoga and movement teachers / practitioners, dancers, creatives and therapists to enter the world of Somatics; a multi-faceted CPD of embodied practices that foreground the connection to and the expression of the inner body in movement and its relation to nature and the elements.
This CPD is an empirically based somatic, therapeutic approach to movement that utilises a creative and expressive approach informed by nature to engage the body, mind, and spirit in order to transform stress, suffering and trauma.
At its heart, the Elemental Body CPD fosters feeling, care, empathy, and soul. It is work that cultivates ways of seeing, being, and moving that support us to directly experience the inter-connected nature of existence. From this perspective Elemental Body could be defined as an eco-somatic, eco-feminist process. Cultivating states of embodied consciousness through the moving, sensate body are fundamentally important and can provide us with inner wells of resource from which to respond to and tend to the multiple social and ecological crises we are facing in contemporary culture right now.
Embodying the elements can become a source of ancestral wisdom, a supportive and structured container, that can hold us and allow us to feel and move through both beautiful and challenging internal landscapes.
The CPD develops the moving, sensate body as a regenerative field of contemplation, resource, emotional intelligence and creative process that can connect us to empathy, compassion and states of inter-connectedness. This process is cultivated through developing a foundational somatic yoga practice that focuses on stability, grounding, clarity, structure and orientation. This stable foundation provides the bedrock from which the body can now feel and express its inner landscape in relationship to nature and here it can flower into its own authentic dance.
The opening and expression of the inner body through improvised dance / movement is supported by coherent somatic therapeutic principles and techniques from Yoga, Buddhist Meditation (Insight and Zen), Japanese Butoh Dance, Body Orientated Trauma Therapy (Somatic Experiencing), and Somatic Movement.
For more info and booking: https://www.gemmamallolsomatics.com/
Dance of Awareness
An introduction of Dance of Awareness Weekend Workshop
By License practitioner Marcela Wakehm.
Date: June 8th and 9th 2024 ~ 10:00 to 5:00 pm each day
What is Dance of Awareness?
Dance of Awareness is a group dance movement therapy created by Psychotherapist Tim Brown, and Dance Movement Psychotherapist Clare Osbond, in the UK.
Dance of Awareness offers a model for working therapeutically and creatively with movement, dance and awareness. It is influenced by: Reichian Body-Centered Character Structure, Psychoanalytic Theory, Developmental Psychology, Five Rhythms Dance, Authentic Movement and the experiential exploration of awareness itself.
This embodied practice follows a bioenergetics wave of charging and discharging. In the course of the experience, during the six phases of the cycle (called a “wave”) we follow the themes of human development from pre-birth until around five years old. This is the time period associated with the growing sense of self which becomes embodied through early experience, and which sets the patterns of adulthood. This gives the mover the opportunity to explore the formative years of early development, old imprints, and discover new patterns of moving and relating.
How does it work?
The process of Dance of Awareness is underpinned by the emphasis of awareness itself, it can offer to the mover a source of freedom, innovation, pattern-recognition, creativity, and an authentic way of relating and perceiving the world. The dynamic is to go into awareness through sensation, asking what do I notice? We then wait for a body to respond or look at the way you are responding. Sense it, breathe into it, let it express and follow the movement into completion. Music is an important element of the process evoking particular energies at the different phases of the cycle, guiding the group through six sequential phases which together form a continuous wave of energy.
The phases are:
· Sensing the body directly – arriving into ‘being’ with an internal focus on physical sensation and an external focus on the five senses.
· Grounding our bodies in relation to the earth and others, receiving support.
· Expressing the shapes, patterns and movements that are ready to take form.
· Releasing the energy that is ready to move in the body.
· Connecting deeper into ourselves – and outwards with others and the world.
· Completing the journey and returning to our true nature.
· Throughout the process there is strong emphasis on body awareness which provides the ground for our experience.
Cost:
£185 (Early Bird Price until March 31st) £225 thereafter.
If financial hardship is a barrier please be in touch. I self fund subsidies to make this work more accessible. Especially welcoming enquiries from those who identify as being marginalized due to race/ethnicity, disability, gender & LGBTQ+ and experiencing financial hardship.